I personally don’t think he was that good, he wasn’t even finishing when he was playing well.
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The whole Captain Chaos thing did have some value for a while.
Maybe it’s just me seeing him with rose tinted glasses given our current malaise.
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He did certainly press from the front until that last 6 months and I won’t ever forget that Newcastle brace but the highlights were few and far between. If he was here I assume we’d be getting the last 6 months as by design or something else none of our forwards seem to press unless they’ve forgotten and do it by instinct.
Watched Forest on Monday and they were at Chelsea and that’s why they won that first half. It’s sad because Forest were much like us second but they had done the job, bit like Slot in the early months.
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Also the Brentford brace. We had almost given up the win when he came on and changed the match.
Wasn’t sure where to post this - whether here or Arne’s thread, but I read this on the Athletic website in James Pearce’s Liverpool Mailbag column (so take with a pinch of salt as usual 
.)
There’s been a lot of talk about going to a back three next season but that’s not a system Slot has favoured. After Salah announced he was leaving in March, I was told that part of the plan going forward would be 4-2-2-2 with Isak and Ekitike paired, with Wirtz and Szoboszlai operating behind them.
Obviously it is described as being only “part of the plan” but wouldn’t it suggest that we are unlikely to be after two wingers (unless one is very comfortable playing as a central forward to cover Hugo’s absence)?
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The transfer business we have done over the last year only makes sense with a 4-2-2-2 or a 5-2-1-2, especially with Jacquet coming in the back 3/5 would make sense. But there’s no saying that our transfer business has to make sense!
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I have real concerns about “solutions” like that because it what do you do one one of those 4 is unavailable? Can you replicate that with a different player? Maybe Cody in for one of the front 2. Maybe you bring Harvey back or play Alexis for one of the second bank of 2. But its the sort of “solution” you land on to solve a problem. Not a first order preference, and then leaves you a load of downstream problems to solve. e.g. where does Rio fit? Wing back?
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Moronic.
Initial plan: Let get someone so that the transition from the success we have built over the past 7 years is not disrupted to a large degree.
Actual plan: Stop working hard. Change system. Lose fitness. Play boring football.
Decision: Base everything off last year, don’t look at this year at all. The downward trend is still trending down, but really how low can we go? So sign new players for the new system, BUT next time we will follow our initial plan.
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It’s good, gives fans the opportunity to ask questions about certain details that might not be in their articles.
On the topic, if that’s the plan, we might still eye a winger or two. To have options to change. Have two players who would be more like inside options and two players would be more like wingers.
That said, I’m still not convinced by it all.
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But football evolves. One of the complaints against Slot this season when things were going really badly was he wasn’t trying anything different and kept using the same under performing players.
Guardiola isn’t playing tiki-taka anymore. Arteta has gone from Guardiola disciple to budget Mourinho. Teams lower down the league have caught up to the high press game plan and how to counter. Sure you can watch PSG and want to play like that again but that takes a special set of players. We had that with our front three but if you can’t replace those with like for like you have to adapt.
It’s been a rough watch this season but we can’t play like Klopp’s team forever. Even by the end Klopp was trying to evolve. Thiago was never a hard runner like Hendo and Gini nor a defensive midfielder in the mold of Fabinho. Darwin was a goal scorer not an enabler for our wide forwards to thrive. And we were never going to be able to replace Trent with a like for like player.
Times move on. You need a manager that can too.
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Just to add to this, Klopp had a reputation for heavy metal gegen pressing, but both our titles -his and Slot’s - were built on a foundation of more patient, controlled football.
Klopp most definitely evolved away from the rabid pressing during his 9 years.
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We were still one of the best pressing sides in Europe, that principle off the ball never went out. And it never would under Klopp.
What changed is the individual quality and understanding of the team and the respect of opponents for us, which meant us having more possession (and then you have to evolve how to use it and make us more dangerous with that possession), which meant that the challenge to break down most teams became different.
But we were still a pressing machine, more or less, because we had some seasons where the level dropped (like 22/23, but then we revived our principles in 23/24).
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Tchouameni looks like he could be on his way out of Real Madrid. We wanted him 3 years ago, would we go in for him again?
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he would certainly provide some fight in the team…
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Yeah, we evolved year on year, but we never got rid of our commitment to winning it back high and early when possible. For Klopp, and he was very clear about this and said it over and over again, the pressing was primarily a way to create good goal scoring chances for us. The less teams try to play out of the back or through the midfield the less opportunity there is to press and the more you need to lean on other things to create chances for yourself. The need to find those other ways of breaking teams down is what drove the biggest changes but the commitment to pressing when the other team played ball was always there
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I read a lot of praise about Forest’s players with a number of them linked to moves to bigger clubs including us, but I struggle to see why they are near the bottom of the table. Are the players not as good as being made out, are the remaining players so much worse, or is there some other factor at play?
They’ve really missed Chris Wood.
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It’s these comments where I wonder whether people can just see the reality between the conversations, or just blindly criticise for the sake of it?
Quansah - the conversation would have gone like, realistically Jarell you’re 4th place for a start. Quansah says no chance, I’m good for it, a starter, so I’m ready to move. He moves, we sell and money had been made on an 8 year old local academy lad. Good luck to him, he did the right thing!
Elliott - you’re a left footer that normally plays on the right wing, there’s a player there already so being honest with you, you’re not going to start. Elliott says, I’m at that age now where I want to be starting matches and making a name for myself. He then agrees to a premier league loan out, it actually is the worst decision he makes in his career!
Endo - Who is this Endo? I’ve read one premier league start, total 172 minutes played, 1 ECL start, 87 minutes total played. There was enough squad players available when the decision had already been made that he was finished, dead wood style.
Chiesa - He could’ve been used more for sure. But again see the Mo Salah conundrum and also pretty much everyone saying Rio should be playing everytime he’s available on the bench. Chiesa was never realistically going to be a starter, so not a cold shoulder, but more like, you’re simply on the fringe mate because you ain’t better than others available to me.
And then finally Nunez, Liverpool would have already told him that they had been targeting Isak and Ekitike for the future. You’re now realistically going into the season as 3rd choice mate. There’s a Saudi offer in for you, same sort of wage in your back pocket as Mo Salah’s and the club get what was it 50 million?
I don’t see anything cold hearted about any of this? Just looks like regular football club business to me, know what I mean?
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Yeah, as unexpected an answer as this is, I think it explains a lot. Obviously the managerial experiments have hurt, but Forest are where you’d expect them be to based on goals scored. Wood went from 20 goals last season to not even making 20 appearances this, and the money they spent on new forwards just hasn’t returned anything. I think Jesus is only on 5 or 6. I think they’ve got 4 maybe 5 players who could play on teams at the top of the table next season, but if you put them in a side that doesnt score goals they’re still going to struggle
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Real players don’t normally go in our direction … but if they did, I’d only be interested in valverde and that bastard courtois